The Catch-Up
It’s been a busy time in general and with the hobby for me the last couple of months, but I was still surprised to see how long it had been since I last posted here. So, let me fix that.
See Ya, Panini
The biggest change was getting out of the Panini NFT platform. The link covers the why and how, but the end result has been a letting go of a lot of negativity. Well, I’m going to really avoid buying anything from Panini again, but besides that.
Langford’s Struggles
If you follow baseball, obviously my Wyatt Langford experiment is not looking so hot early on. In my post, I wrote:
There’s always a risk that once a book is out on a guy it will take a while for him to adjust. There hasn’t been a lot of evidence for that during Spring Training, but that typically doesn’t start showing up until the games count. However, his bat talent should provide some highlight worthy power even if he struggles for average early on.
Unfortunately, that power has yet to materialize. Langford was getting a lot of ABs but only had 1 HR and it was an inside-the-park job. He’ll be on the IL for the next few weeks after a hamstring injury, so maybe he’ll be able to work on his power while rehabbing in AAA. Before his injury, he was starting to hit the ball harder so I think it’s just a matter of time before he starts putting them over the wall.
So, what happened? According to Rangers’ manager Bruce Bochy it’s a combination of stance adjustments, playing in a DH role, and not being quite aggressive enough at the plate. I probably watched 50 or so Langford ABs this season and that seems pretty accurate to me. He has an excellent eye for the strike zone, but even the umps seem to be telling him to swing more with some of the bad strike calls he’s been getting.
What is clear to me is he belongs in the bigs. Compare him to Jackson Holliday, who looked completely lost after call-up, and it’s clear that Langford is mentally ready. He has game-changing speed and has shown a good arm as well when he’s been in LF. His average is a little low, but I think figuring out the power issue will help that a great deal. He has such good bat speed that even the ones that don’t go over the fence could do some damage.
I’m still bullish long-term. I got into Langford as a longer play and I’ve not seen anything to discourage me from continuing that. I think this piece is a good breakdown on the prospects for Langford when he is back in the lineup. Clearly, it would have been better to wait to pick up the cards I did but in the end I think I’ll be more than fine with the results.
Selling Again
After getting through the transfers related to selling my Panini NFT account, I started up the old eBay store again and have enjoyed moving some cards that have been sitting around.
I want a little more time with the current tools I’m using, but I’ll do a future post on how I handle selling physical cards. There have been some good developments recently that have sped up the listing process that I was glad to see.
I’ve also sold some of my eBay Vault pickups. The soccer market has been really soft, so I’m offloading a few pieces I wasn’t too attached to. Only one was a loss and that was pretty modest (and it was also a stupid buy to begin with, so I’ll take the idiot tax on that one). With no seller or shipping fees on Vault sales, even the small profits are real profits.
2021 Panini Donruss Road to Qatar, Kaboom!, Kylian Mbappe, PSA 10, +$75 (bought for $1,250; sold for $1,325)
Mbappe values have not gone up in spec before his Real Madrid transfer at all and these Kabooms! dropped a good bit after I bought mine. So, glad to get a modest profit from this one since I’m not sure there’s going to be much of a transfer bump for him based on what we’ve seen so far. Hard to believe, but maybe just a product of soccer not really growing much in the hobby lately among US buyers. This being a second-Kaboom for Mbappe and me frankly not being a fan of Kabooms anyway, it wasn’t hard to let this go.
2023 Topps Chrome MLS, Big City Strikers Gold, 01/50, Lionel Messi, PSA 10, -$25 (bought for $875, sold for $850)
This was the stupid buy. I was looking for a Messi slab and talked myself into this MLS card having some potential as a Downtown-type insert. It was a dumb move at the price I paid and I’m glad to have it out of the stash for a small loss.
2018 Futera Unique, Rookies, Vinicius Jr., PSA 10, +$100 (bought for $420, sold for $520)
This might be one I regret later, but I felt like this could also be the best sale I get for it. Such is the soccer market. I like these Futera cards, but they are obviously not beloved yet in the hobby like the cards from the main producers. Still, this is a very low pop rookie of one of the best in the game and could end up being a great buy down the road.
And there was this notable one on COMC, which did come with fees:
2017 Topps Chrome UEFA CL, Base, Kylian Mbappe, PSA 10, +$25 (bought for $175, sold for $200)
I’ve got a few of these, so just taking a small profit on one of them since Mbappe values did not pump like I thought they would in advance of his transfer. Small hedge in case that pump never comes.
I’ve also been doing some modest short-term flipping on COMC to see how that goes. Nothing really to note here, but I’ve had a couple small wins. I’m trying to see how long I can go without putting new money into COMC. Expect a future post about this experiment.
Ripping A Little, Too
It seems inevitable that as I go through my cards to get stuff listed I want to get some new cards for inventory. I’ve been ripping a few things here and there. No huge pulls or anything like that, but it’s always fun to rip packs now and then.
Not breaking news here, but one thing is clear: there are just so many parallels in these products. It’s good as a seller, but seems like this will go very wrong down the road in terms of values. In particular with the flagship Topps and Bowman products. I certainly understand the business reasons for structuring the products this way, but unless overall demand really does approach that “10x-ing the hobby” goal of Fanatics we’re all going to have a lot of low numbered parallels worth very little down the road.
So, I’m approaching ripping as just a fun exercise. I cannot suggest doing it as a way to make money from flipping. If you’re moving wax and willing to take those risks, probably that is a more interesting idea for certain products. I do not want to deal with shipping wax (and potential games from less scrupulous buyers related to that), so that’s not something I’ve done more than a couple of times.
But fun is important, too. It’s sometimes very easy to forget that with all the drama and outrage-du-jour in the hobby. If ripping a pack doesn’t still get your heart going, it may be time to do something else.